GREAT FALLS — Alaina Browning's pickup truck slowly rumbles down the dirt road to her home at the convergence of the Musselshell River and Calf Creek.

Progress is slow because the innumerable amount of trucks and traffic that have traveled the normally lazy road have churned up sharp rocks and dug sand pits deep enough to bottom out low-riding cars.

Then she hits the brakes.

Out of the passenger window, she sees three rebellious cows she thought she lost in the fire.

"Out of the ashes, girls," Alaina said. "You made it."

Alaina is calm and matter-of-fact as she cruises the dusty road. It's hard to imagine that less than a week earlier, she and her husband Travis were racing through walls of flames down the same path to make sure their daughters and home weren't taken by the 270,200-acre Lodgepole Complex Fire.

"Travis was sent to the Square Butte Fire and then to the South Breaks Fire (two of the fires in what has been called the Lodgepole Complex)," Alaina said. "I was with him to provide support from our fuel truck. We heard radio traffic saying a local was injured at Calf Creek, and they were being taken by ambulance. We didn't know if it was one of our kids."

The Brownings have six daughters: Tristany, Tierany, Tory, Tylee, Tawny and Tinley and a 17-month-old grandson named Reid. All but Tristany were at the house as the flames poured over ridges and toward the Browning Ranch.